transcription, транскрипция: [ kʌlə(r) ]
( colours, colouring, coloured)
Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English.
Note: in AM, use 'color'
1.
The colour of something is the appearance that it has as a result of the way in which it reflects light. Red, blue, and green are colours.
‘What colour is the car?’—‘Red.’...
Her silk dress was sky-blue, the colour of her eyes...
Judi’s favourite colour is pink...
The badges come in twenty different colours and shapes.
N-COUNT : usu with supp
2.
A colour is a substance you use to give something a particular colour. Dyes and make-up are sometimes referred to as colours .
...The Body Shop Herbal Hair Colour...
It is better to avoid all food colours.
...the latest lip and eye colours.
N-VAR
3.
If you colour something, you use something such as dyes or paint to change its colour.
Many women begin colouring their hair in their mid-30s...
We’d been making cakes and colouring the posters...
The petals can be cooked with rice to colour it yellow.
VERB : V n , V n , V n colour
• col‧our‧ing
They could not afford to spoil those maps by careless colouring.
N-UNCOUNT
4.
If someone colours , their face becomes redder than it normally is, usually because they are embarrassed.
Andrew couldn’t help noticing that she coloured slightly.
= blush
VERB : V
5.
Someone’s colour is the colour of their skin. People often use colour in this way to refer to a person’s race.
I don’t care what colour she is...
He acknowledged that Mr Taylor’s colour and ethnic origins were utterly irrelevant in the circumstances.
N-COUNT : usu sing , oft poss N [ politeness ]
6.
A colour television, photograph, or picture is one that shows things in all their colours, and not just in black, white, and grey.
In Japan 99 per cent of all households now have a colour television set.
ADJ : usu ADJ n
7.
Colour is a quality that makes something especially interesting or exciting.
She had resumed the travel necessary to add depth and colour to her novels.
N-UNCOUNT
see also local colour
8.
If something colours your opinion, it affects the way that you think about something.
The attitude of the parents toward the usefulness of what is learned must colour the way children approach school.
= affect
VERB : V n
9.
A country’s national colours are the colours of its national flag.
The Opera House is decorated with the Hungarian national colours: green, red and white.
N-PLURAL
10.
People sometimes refer to the flag of a particular part of an army, navy, or air force, or the flag of a particular country as its colours .
Troops raised the country’s colors in a special ceremony.
...the battalion’s colours.
N-PLURAL : poss N
11.
A sports team’s colours are the colours of the clothes they wear when they play.
I was wearing the team’s colours.
N-PLURAL
12.
see also coloured , colouring
13.
If you pass a test with flying colours , you have done very well in the test.
So far McAllister seemed to have passed all the tests with flying colors.
PHRASE : PHR after v
14.
If a film or television programme is in colour , it has been made so that you see the picture in all its colours, and not just in black, white, or grey.
Was he going to show the film? Was it in colour?...
PHRASE : v-link PHR , PHR after v
15.
People of colour are people who belong to a race with dark skins.
Black communities spoke up to defend the rights of all people of color.
PHRASE : n PHR [ politeness ]
16.
If you see someone in their true colours or if they show their true colours , you realize what they are really like.
The children are seeing him in his true colours for the first time now...
Here, the organization has had time to show its true colours, to show its inefficiency and its bungling.
PHRASE : PHR after v